Thursday, October 15, 2015

We had the mini-van again. My parents were biking from Prague to Budapest and left their light blue 2006 Honda Odyssey in our clutches for the duration. They were barely dropped off at the airport before Tom and I had schematics of the large objects which were about to get moved around.

And so we found ourselves careening up 8th Avenue in the pouring rain last week, hauling a gigantic table. Our plan was to drop the table off at our apartment and then head uptown to see a one-man-show entitled, “My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy."

It was not going well.

First of all, as soon as you put a light blue Honda mini-van with Pennsylvania plates in the proximity of the Holland Tunnel, you get every snot-nosed driver within eye shot honking at you and trying to cut you off. Like you’ve got the wheelsmanship of some kind of slow-witted floppy bear-like animal.

Just because my father has a decal of some kind of slow-witted floppy bear-like animal stuck on the hatchback of his mini-van does not mean anything but Tom cackling things like, “Ha ha ha. Just try it, Lincoln Navigator. No one will ever notice if this mini-van gets another scratch on it."

Usually I am squawking about getting carsick when Evil Tom starts snickering at cabbies and slithering between traffic cones, but the mini-van has surprisingly good suspension and I was edgy. We were getting later and later for the start time of the one-man-show.

Finally, we get up to our block, lock up the mini-van and sprint for the train. Remind me not to take the 1 train again. It has more stops than there are streets in manhattan. I thought we had made a fatal error not making a run for the 2 in Times Square.

We made it on time. The one-man, of the show, somehow spilled a drink on a guy in the front row of the theatre as he was getting on the stage. This caused a small napkin dabbing hubbub with a duration just long enough for us to arrive.

Meanwhile, the gigantic table remained in the mini-van parked curbside. Until we got back downtown and hauled it up to our apartment. Where is remains, still gigantic. Remind me in the future that scale is a thing.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Two black guys were one step above us on the escalator riding up to the movie theatre on the top floor.

They were big. Big with baggy pants, ink on their fingers, and baseball caps pulled low. On their hoodies were some words in that graffiti typeface I can never read. I thought about these dudes being in the darkened theatre with us.

And I felt so relieved.

After all, it's always some white guy who shoots up movie theaters.

Tom went over to get popcorn while I created hypothetical scenarios in my head. Let’s say these guys are from the worst project in the city… what would I think if they had a weapon jammed down their pants?

Certainly not ideal. Not even good. But it’s probably more likely they'd be the ones to save the lot of us than some vigilante suburbanite who has never been in the army or any other well-regulated militia, never been in law enforcement, never tangled in a street flight and has had exactly zero training or experience learning how to not freak the fuck out while getting shot in a crowd.

It’s always strange to me how it's always the scrawny ones or the flabby ones who don't live in a city who seem to be the best at vividly picturing the scene where they save the women and children like they spent every day of their lives in Jason Bourne combat training.

But instead of going to fight club or self-defense class, they ride around on their John Deere riding mowers and fantasize for hours.

Sunday, October 04, 2015

I read “The Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Konto and have been walking around my house chucking random objects ever since. Marie would be aghast. She is squarely against intermittent tidying and more in favor of the tsunami approach. In case you were unaware, this Marie Konto is a cult leader. If you read the book and then you do not properly follow directions, you feel like you just got put on the universe's naughty short list.

Sadly I suck at following directions, ask any of my lopsided DIY endeavors. This is why I’ve spent the past month seeking off-road tidying opportunities. I want to write my own rules like Sacajawea and her sidekicks Lewis and Clark. I want all the glory while lounging on my petard in fuzzy slippers surrounded by piles of old magazines.

Tidying Up while Lying Down:

This morning on the sofa, I have a genius idea. I will sort my iTunes playlist by “date last played” and then consider getting rid of mp3s I haven’t listened to for awhile. Hard drive clutter, consider yourself bagged up and put on the curb.

Turns out, I own a whole fandango of songs unplayed since 2004. Except all the 2004 songs are Christmas songs. I decide to wait until Christmas to lose the Christmas songs. Purging while not in the throes of holiday spirit might be a terrible mistake.

On to 2005:

I like the Fugees. I will not delete the Fugees. I hit play. Now all the songs I haven’t listened to since 2005 I listened to moments ago. This is not going well.

And then the entire operation goes totally off the rails. Because maybe every year i should listen to the ten-year-old songs like some kind of motherfucking tradition. This is a whole year of my life we’re talking about. If I delete these songs off my hard drive, then there will be no trunk of dusty digital vinyl for anybody to find after my eventual death or poorly performed computer upgrade. Poof. Gone without even a crappy yard sale.

All this could be resolved by simply embracing streaming music, some people might pipe up. These people do not understand ancient ass philosophizers such as myself. My gnarled fingers managed to press record and play at the same time. I remember what it was like before velcro.

Slutty GenX Problems with Streaming Cloud Music:

Here's my gypsy child of a conundrum. I like to get my sweaty hands all over songs and make them my bitches. I housebreak the suckers. Spotify is a musical red light district and I’m the worst kind of tart. How can you own the cow if you buy the milk in cartons at Duane Reed?